H1Z1 shows off its dynamic weather system in new batch of images

SOE recently showed off its new zombie MMO, H1Z1, with some screenshots of the game's lovely, snow covered scenery—and word that such blustery weather will affect gameplay. The newest batch of in-game screens shows off the engine's dynamic weather system, and includes new details and explanation of how it works from programmer Ryan Favale, including that weather changes will all be handled serverside.

Changing weather is neat and all, but the fact that the system will include weather changes for everyone on the server is welcome news. As Favale says in the H1Z1 dev blog , this means that every player will be “seeing the same weather, the same fog particle at the same location, viewing the same moon and stars at the exact same locations.”

There's another reason that H1Z1's weather has to stay under the server's control: hackers. Favale mentions that having all the weather handled serverside will prevent hackers from turning off their own bad weather while everyone else slogs around in a snowstorm. With everyone sharing weather across the map and a large enough simulation, it will be interesting to see if the weather reports and knowledge of incoming storms start to become valuable information.

You can see more of the in-game weather affects on the game's Twitter profile . H1Z1 is currently preparing for an early-access release that will cost $20, before going free-to-play with microtransactions as part of the full game . You can check out our hands-on look at it here.

Tom is PC Gamer’s Associate Editor. He enjoys platformers, puzzles and puzzle-platformers. He also enjoys talking about PC games, which he now no longer does alone. Tune in every Wednesday at 1pm Pacific on Twitch.tv/pcgamer to see Tom host The PC Gamer Show.